CHAPTER V

HONESTY IN POLITICS

Side by side with Lincoln’s life at the bar ran a different yet kindred

career--that of the politician. These twin pursuits claimed him at

almost the outset, as they claim so many men who enter upon the law. But

in his case the customary order was reversed, for he had been elected to

public office before he became a lawyer.

Early during the spring of 1832, while still a clerk in Denton Offutt’s

grocery store at New Salem, Lincoln announced himself to be an aspirant

for electoral honors. How this came about is not without interest.

According to his own explanation, offered in a little speech made at the

time, he had been “solicited by many friends”[v-1] to become a candidate

for the State Legislature. The phrase doubtless passed more nearly at

its face value on that occasion than is usual with such euphemisms of

the stump. For in very truth, this young man--newcomer though he was,

and but just past his twenty-third birthday--had won the good will of

the people about him to a remarkable degree. Sunning themselves in the

charm of his kindly nature, laughing at his jokes and applauding his

feats of physical strength, admiring the scanty learning which he

employed with so much common sense, and confiding, above everything, in

an integrity that had already been subjected, as we have seen, to

numerous little tests, the voters of New Salem might well have

“solicited” Lincoln to enter the political field. They had known him, it

is true, less than nine months, but may not that brief period have

teemed with as many experiences as ordinarily fill the corresponding

number of years in more conservative communities? For time seems

measured by heartbeats, so to say, rather than by hours, when it is

quickened with the stress and strain of life on a Western frontier.

Under the primitive conditions that prevail there, elemental qualities

push to the front, men stand revealed for what they really are, and true

leadership comes speedily into its own. So the smiling young clerk,

whose tall, angular form towered above Offutt’s counter, impressed

himself upon his customers as a suitable person to be entrusted with the

not too onerous duties of representing them in the General Assembly.

They had seen enough of him to believe that those ungainly lines overlay

a group of faculties which might be relied on for effective political

service; and, what was infinitely more important, they felt assured that

whenever these faculties were exerted, they would move in harmony with

the laws of honor.

Honor, in the fine, exalted sense of the term, however, hardly entered

at this time into the calculations of the New Salem constituents. No

far-reaching moral principle apparently claimed their attention, and

such interests as they had in that particular election itself were

commonplace enough. The voters desired a member who could be trusted to

look loyally, with unsoiled hands, after their material needs at the

State Capital. They wanted good faith there, rather than high ideals.

The candidate--not less practical, for that matter, and a politician

true to type in the making--wanted an office. To say that he entered

upon this initial canvass with any exceptionally lofty programme, is to

anticipate the full-orbed halo of later days, at a period when only the

first faint prophetic glow might, perhaps, now and then have been

discernible. In sober truth, as Lincoln frankly explained, “Offutt’s

business was failing--had almost failed.”[2] It would soon become

necessary to find a new job, and the pay of a Representative, though

limited to day’s wages for short terms, with mileage, looked

sufficiently inviting. Moreover, this call from “among his immediate

neighbors,”[v-2] to quote him again, touched perhaps the most vulnerable

point in Abe’s character--his personal ambition. The “last infirmity of

noble mind” may sometimes also be the first. From Lincoln’s earliest

youth the passion to surpass others had dominated him at every turn.

Pitting his strength, whether of mind or body, against that of his

associates, he had lost no opportunity of excelling them, until it

seemed almost second nature for this homely mixture of modesty and

self-assertion, of good humor and mastery, to become the central figure

in every group through which he moved. So confirmed grew these habits of

leadership that as Lincoln reached manhood the craving for distinction,

the aspiration to be big where once he had been little, must have

entered into the very core of his being. It was not overstating the

case, accordingly, for him to tell his “fellow-citizens,” in a printed

address issued at the beginning of this canvass: “Every man is said to

have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say, for

one, that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my

fellow-men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem.”[v-3]

These phrases, stripped of their conventional wrappings, really meant

that the writer had set his heart, above all things, upon popularity.

The very intensity of such an aspiration must have put him severely to

the test. How far he went in gratifying it, and to what extent, if any,

inconvenient moral scruples were allowed to impede his eager progress,

are pertinent questions. Was he, in other words, under the absolute sway

of the master passion, as so many eager souls have been, or did an alert

conscience at crucial points apply the controlling brake? Conclusive

answers to these queries can, we are aware, be given only after a survey

of the man’s entire career; yet back there, almost at the beginning of

things, on the threshold, so to say, of his public life, one group of

circumstances dimly prefigured, in a way, the whole story.

When Lincoln essayed this first short flight into politics, Democratic

men and measures were supreme on well-nigh every hand. The reign of

Andrew Jackson was at its height. Under his imperious leadership--he had

just completed three years in the White House--“radical doctrines,”

so-called, commanded ever-increasing support; while his own magnetic

personality attracted many followers who were as ardent in their

support of him as they grew intolerant of those who opposed him. No

predecessor had carried the rewarding of friends and the punishing of

enemies to such an extreme. Partisanship was in the saddle. Proscription

became the order of the day. Taking their cue from the despotic decrees

issued, time and again at Washington, the “whole-hog Jackson men,” as

the most zealous among the President’s adherents were not inaptly

called, stationed themselves across the highways to preferment and

crushed out the political lives of candidates who failed to respond with

the familiar shibboleths of the party.[v-4] When methods so coercive are

pursued by a powerfully intrenched majority, place-hunters in great

numbers throng to its standard. Their huzzas may be heard above the

voices of the faithful, and patronage, rather than political creed,

directs--if indeed it does not control--the devious operations of

partisan machinery. Such was the scene that presented itself to the

young Lincoln’s anxious eyes, as he looked over this new, this untried

field for a point of vantage from which a beginner might try his wings.

Nor was the prospect nearer home essentially different. There, too, the

uncompromising Democracy that swayed so much of the country at large

seemed all powerful. Illinois, in fact, was counted by this potent

majority among its rock-ribbed strongholds, and though factional

differences, from time to time, disturbed local harmony, the journalist

who described “Jacksonism” as dominating that State with “the strength

of Gibraltar,”[v-5] hardly overdrew the picture. Sangamon County, it is

true, contained a considerable number who did not favor the President,

yet even there his majorities were decisive. So, all in all, an

ambitious tyro, making a maiden appeal to the voters of that district

from the obscure little village of New Salem, had every incentive,

apparently, for enrolling himself in the ranks of these triumphant

Democrats.

Such a course would not have run counter one whit to Lincoln’s early

sympathies. His father, we are told, was a Democrat, or a Democratic

Republican, to use the older designation; his own youthful associations

had been largely with people of the same stripe; and, like many other

lads of the period, he regarded the picturesque chieftain of the party

with a personal admiration which neither time nor political changes

wholly effaced.[v-6] But as Abraham reached manhood, a greater

statesman--greater in not a few requisites of leadership--had attracted

his favor; and he found himself, ere long, at one with those who were

enlisted under the banner of Henry Clay.

That eminent campaigner’s personality captivated the younger man’s

imagination. It presented a magnet to which the true metal in Lincoln’s

nature could not but respond. There were elements, moreover, in “gallant

Harry’s” character, no less than in his achievements so far as they had

then been unfolded, that compelled profound respect. Clay’s early

poverty, of which no sordid traces were perceptible in a singularly

winning presence, his breadth of human sympathy and largeness of vision,

a chivalrous manner that accorded well with an ardently sanguine

temperament, his unswerving integrity with regard to pecuniary matters,

the lofty standard that he had set himself for the practice of his

profession as a lawyer, his equally lofty standards of public

duty,--then still unshaken by the shifts of a beguiling ambition,--the

splendid courage, not to say genius, with which he rose to the demands

of great political occasions, a generous patriotism that inspired him to

carry peace-winning concessions across the barriers raised by

conflicting parties, his steadily expanding record which at every turn,

whether in the Kentucky Legislature, the United States Senate, the House

of Representatives, the Speaker’s chair, the diplomatic service, or the

President’s Cabinet, had thus far been marked by the _élan_ and dash of

a brilliant intellect, an eloquence that baffled description, yet left

his audiences for the rest of their days under the spell of its

witchery,--all this and more had brought Lincoln to a point well-nigh

bordering upon hero-worship.

Naturally, so strong a preference for “the Great Commoner” himself

extended, in a way, to his public policies. Clay’s political programme,

comprising by that time three notable issues,--the demands for a federal

bank, a high protective tariff, and a continental scheme of internal

improvements,--may also be said to have left its impress upon Lincoln’s

mind. He was not deeply concerned, it is true, during those callow days,

with national questions; yet so far as he held any views on such

matters, they favored “Clay’s American System” and the principles

generally of the National Republican Party.

So it happened that when Lincoln came to make his first political

campaign, he enlisted on the weaker side. “An avowed Clay man,” to quote

the candidate himself, he declared for a leader who, with all his

attainments, had already been severely routed in a contest for the

Presidency, and what is more, who was destined to encounter still

further disasters of the same nature. Yet no heroics, no fine flourish

of trumpets, so far as is known, accompanied this decision. A poor,

obscure young man, in need of an office and eager for distinction, was

merely following his convictions rather than his apparent interests by

enrolling himself under colors doomed to repeated reverses, and in

opposition to the most ruthlessly intolerant majority that the political

processes of the country had thus far evolved. The result must have been

a foregone conclusion. Lincoln’s canvass came to grief. Commenting on

the episode, twenty-eight years later, in that brief autobiography

written as the basis for a “campaign life,” he said: “This was the only

time Abraham was ever beaten on a direct vote of the people.”[v-7]

And even that beating looks now, in certain respects, more like a

victory than a defeat. Lincoln did not, it is conceded, prevail at the

polls; but in one of those astonishing reversals whereby the X-ray of

history sometimes reveals material failure to be spiritual success, this

experience should rank among his greatest triumphs.

There was another reason, less obscure at the moment, for not regarding

the campaign as wholly disastrous. It established Lincoln’s claim to

political consideration by a remarkable circumstance. Although he failed

to receive the requisite number of votes throughout the

county,--standing eighth on the list of thirteen candidates who

ran,--his own neighbors in the precinct which contained New Salem gave

him 277 marks out of the entire 290 recorded for Representatives.[v-8]

The full significance of these figures can be appreciated only after it

is added that the same citizens, a few weeks later, cast 115 more votes

for General Jackson’s Presidential electors than they gave to Mr.

Clay’s;[v-9] and further, that this well-nigh unanimous support of their

youthful townsman, without regard to his politics, was bestowed during a

period noted in our annals for its intensely bitter partisanship.

Explaining the phenomenon, many years thereafter, another promising

young politician of those days, wrote: “The Democrats of New Salem

worked for Lincoln out of their personal regard for him. That was the

general understanding of the matter here at the time. In this he made no

concession of principle whatever. He was as stiff as a man could be in

his Whig doctrines. They did this for him simply because he was

popular--because he was Lincoln.”[v-10]

Because--the writer might have continued--they had weighed and measured

Offutt’s clerk, while he was weighing and measuring commodities behind

the grocery-store counter; because--what is still more to the

purpose--both sets of accounts, however dissimilar they must have seemed

in the making, tallied peculiarly with each other in the final

reckoning. And when, with almost one accord, the Democrats among these

people who knew the candidate best threw party obligations aside to

register their approval of him at the polls, they placed on record the

first notable judgment passed by the voting public upon his character.

Favorable verdicts without number have been passed upon politicians,

great and small. Merely national reputations are as common among them as

printer’s ink is purchasable. But one must search well through our whole

list of eminent statesmen to find the few who achieved, at any time in

their careers, what Lincoln started with--an almost perfect reputation

at home.

Nor was this big local vote the only expression of confidence in the

“avowed Clay man” manifested by Jacksonians during those militant days.

Before another summer arrived, he had received an appointment from “Old

Hickory” himself, as the reader will remember, to the postmastership at

New Salem; and soon thereafter, John Calhoun, the surveyor for Sangamon

County, an ardent local Administration leader, made him, it may also be

recalled, one of his deputies. That these politicians--high and

low--should so far forego the fruits of the spoils system, looks

creditable not only to the object of their lenity, but to themselves as

well. Still, in the case of the President, it may be doubted whether

much attention was paid to the act which bestowed upon this obscure

appointee an equally obscure office.

The place could hardly have been of less consequence. How insignificant

it really was can be appreciated only when we bear in mind that a far

from regular mail service, scheduled for twice a week, sufficed to meet

the needs of this sparsely settled district; and that even then the high

rate of postage, not to mention the low rate of scholarship, kept the

business transacted there within meager bounds. Indeed, tradition goes

so far as to picture Lincoln carrying the office, for the most part, “in

his hat.” Under its ample crown letters or papers addressed to outlying

settlers are said to have been snugly tucked away until opportunities

came for making deliveries--rural free deliveries, we should call them

to-day--at people’s doors.[v-11] This conscientious young postmaster may

therefore be credited with having anticipated by more than sixty years a

now highly esteemed branch of the postal service. Nor did his usefulness

cease there. If the recipient of a letter was, as not infrequently

happened, illiterate, Abe’s ability to read and write was promptly

called into play. If, on the other hand, our postman brought a

newspaper, he usually came prepared to discuss its contents. For the

privilege of reading before delivering all printed matter that passed

through his hands appears to have been a cherished perquisite of the

office. Lincoln certainly made the most of it. Too poor to subscribe

himself for the various “organs” which professed to reflect, inform, and

guide public opinion, he read with avidity such of them as appeared in

the New Salem mails. This practice laid the foundation, so to say, of

his political education. Indeed, what he was taught by these sheets

during the three years in which he held the post constituted perhaps

Lincoln’s most valued returns from an otherwise poorly paid

occupation.[v-12]

The office of deputy surveyor for Sangamon County, on the other hand,

was more lucrative and of far greater importance: so much so, in fact,

that Lincoln hesitated to accept it at the hands of an official whose

politics were of the opposite stripe. True, he needed a job, just then,

with a good day’s pay attached, if any man ever did; but “man”--that is

to say this kind of man--“doth not live by bread alone,” nor is he

content to live in pursuit of bread alone, when to do so brings his

sincerity into question. Lincoln’s first impulse had been to decline

Calhoun’s offer. It came through a common friend, Pollard Simmons, who,

at the surveyor’s request, had hastened from Springfield to New Salem

with a tender of the appointment. Elated over what he regarded as

Lincoln’s good fortune, Simmons--so the story goes--sought him out in

the woods, where he was splitting rails, and told the glad news. It did

not meet with the reception that the messenger had anticipated. So,

sitting down together upon a log, they discussed the proposition from

their conflicting points of view. To Abe’s mind, after a momentary flush

of pleased surprise, two drawbacks presented themselves. He had no

knowledge of surveying, and he would not tamper with his political

principles to secure a berth however soft. The one obstacle a little

study might, of course, remove. But how about the other? So they talked

it all over until Lincoln finally said: “If I can be perfectly free in

my political action, I will take the office; but if my sentiments, or

even expression of them, is to be abridged in any way, I would not have

it or any other office.”[v-13]

When the speaker presented himself, a few days later, before the

surveyor in Springfield, all of his objections were, as we have seen,

brushed aside. Calhoun needed an able man of unquestioned

integrity--needed him more, at that particular time, than the Democratic

Party needed recruits. How he assisted Lincoln to master the rudiments

of surveying, and how fully he guaranteed him his political

independence, have already been told. To what a remarkable degree,

moreover, this strangely chosen deputy justified the other’s confidence

has also been pointed out. It only remains to be said that, though most

of the incidents which flecked John Calhoun’s eventful career have been

forgotten, he still abides in our memories as the politician who, when

seeking a trustworthy assistant, could see through the mists of partisan

prejudice clearly enough to appraise Abraham Lincoln, thus early, at his

true worth.

The holding of these two places under the Jacksonian régime had no

ill-effects--interesting to relate--upon the young “Clay man’s”

standing. His political sincerity apparently remained unquestioned. What

was more, the good account that he gave of himself as a public servant,

and the enlarged opportunities offered by those offices,--each in its

own way,--contributed not a little toward the growth of an

ever-increasing popularity. It is hardly surprising, therefore, to find

him at the next election, in the summer of 1834, making another, and

that time successful, canvass for the State Legislature. The list of

candidates was as long as it had been two years before. Yet of the four

who were now elected, Lincoln, running but fourteen votes behind the

leader, received the second highest number cast.[v-14]

For this splendid victory he was again largely indebted to Democratic

favor. In fact, prominent members of the opposing party had gone so far

as to offer him their formal endorsement,--an honor which, after some

hesitation and several anxious consultations with his colleagues on the

ticket, Lincoln had accepted. There is no reason to infer that in so

doing he had taken any unfair advantage of them, as has been suggested,

or that his political principles had undergone any trimming whatsoever

in the acquisition of this alien support. How it came about is obvious

enough. The same confidence and good will which New Salem, regardless of

party, had manifested toward him to so notable an extent at the

preceding election, should merely be credited with having spread, during

the intervening two years, though in a lesser degree, perhaps, through

Sangamon County. That section, moreover, so far as local politics went,

was giving a gracious hearing at the time to new ideas and new leaders.

Under the influence of certain able young tacticians with whom Lincoln

had become associated, Jacksonism itself grew less rampant in the

county. There, as elsewhere, the swift alchemy of popular enthusiasm was

at work, fusing hitherto unrelated elements into a novel political unit,

and by a coalition of Clay’s followers with other anti-Jackson

factions, helping to form a great national fellowship--the American Whig

Party. It was as an exponent of this vigorous though untried

organization that the Representative-elect from New Salem took his seat

in the Ninth General Assembly.

Those must have been strenuous days. The Whigs were in a minority; yet

they began, from the fall of the gavel, to exert an influence upon

legislation out of all proportion to their numbers. This required

skillful team-play, and the leaders were doubtless wary of employing

novices. At any rate, no important part on the programme, so far as now

appears, was entrusted to Lincoln. His appointment to the Committee on

Public Accounts and Expenditures seems appropriate enough, in view of

the sobriquet with which he had entered the House; but the transactions

of that committee afforded him slender scope, if the record may be

followed, for displaying financial honesty or, in fact, honesty of any

sort. Nor was he more active during this first session in general

legislation. Several bills of no great moment, service on a few select

committees, occasional routine motions, the presentation of an

unsuccessful petition, and a resolution concerning monies received from

the sales of public lands apparently made up the sum of his doings on

the floor. For the rest, as behooved a fledgling, he kept modestly in

the background. By the time this Legislature reassembled, however, at

the special session of 1835-36, Lincoln’s downright sincerity, his

homely common sense, and a certain capacity for parliamentary work began

to dawn upon his colleagues. He attracted favorable notice too, some

say, by the zeal with which he labored, when the legislative districts

were reapportioned that winter, toward securing for Sangamon a

considerable increase of representation. Under the law then passed, his

county, though not the most populous in the State, was awarded the

heaviest membership in the House of Representatives. So that its

delegation to the General Assembly became enlarged from four members in

the House and two in the Senate to seven in the House and two in the

Senate--changes which were destined to exert a memorable influence upon

the political history of Illinois as well as upon the fortunes of

Abraham Lincoln.

His popularity among the people had meanwhile suffered no diminution.

They liked him, trusted him, and now some of them felt grateful toward

him. It was to a pleased constituency, therefore, from more than one

point of view, that he appealed during the following summer for

reëlection. The contest appears to have been warmly waged on every side,

and though the enlarged list of candidates included several doughty

campaigners,--Democrats as well as Whigs,--Lincoln regained his seat

with the highest vote given by Sangamon to any nominee for the House of

Representatives. What is more, the entire legislative ticket of the new

party in that district was elected. The Whigs, by a signal victory, had

revolutionized the neighborhood; and so complete--we may add in

passing--was their triumph throughout the county that the control which

they then gained over its affairs could at no time, during several

succeeding decades of Democratic ascendancy elsewhere in the State, be

successfully disputed there.

Clean sweeps presuppose stalwart brooms. The newly elected Sangamon

Representatives, together with the Senators who held over, did in fact

make a notable group of men. They were as tall as they were vigorous.

Their average weight is said to have exceeded two hundred pounds, and

their average height six feet. When they appeared at Vandalia for the

session of 1836-37, some wag dubbed them the “Long Nine”--an appellation

that stuck. For even in the capital of a State dedicated, as the Indian

tradition has it, to “superior men,” their appearance no less than their

achievements attracted attention. The stature, moreover, which one of

these tall politicians eventually attained in the world’s history lends

peculiar interest to the whole coterie. On that account, if on no other,

a chronicle of his doings would seem incomplete without the names of

those eight colleagues. They comprised, in the House, John Dawson,

Ninian W. Edwards, Robert L. Wilson, Daniel Stone, William F. Elkin, and

Andrew McCormick; in the Senate, Archer G. Herndon and Job Fletcher, Sr.

These men, fresh from the exaltation of a thoroughgoing party victory,

took their seats in the Legislature with the avowed purpose of

accomplishing great things. And they had need of all their courage. The

particular task which awaited them was no easy one. They were expected

to capture the State Capital for Sangamon County by having the seat of

government transferred from Vandalia to Springfield.

The management of this enterprise was entrusted to Lincoln. He had then

already evinced some of the qualities that go to make a political

leader, and his associates in the “Long Nine,” as if by common consent,

looked to him for guidance. But the honor was apparently not welcome

just then. Suffering from illness and from one of those attacks of

morbid depression that at times possessed him, he entered upon the

session, unlike the others, in no conquering mood. Nevertheless, under

his direction the Sangamon delegation straightway began a spirited

campaign to the greater glory of Springfield. That town was not by any

means the favorite among some half-dozen places which actively aspired

to the capital prize.[v-15] Yet so vigorously were its claims put forth

that competitors came to regard it as their most formidable rival, and

for a time the contest looked as if all the other municipalities in the

field were combined against this one.

The odds bore heavily against the “Long Nine”--so heavily that some of

the big men, at critical points in the unequal, at times well-nigh

futile, struggle, lost heart. But their leader did not flinch. What

might have dismayed more seasoned parliamentary chieftains merely

stimulated Lincoln to renewed efforts. He seemed prepared to stake the

entire session, if necessary, upon the success of the Springfield

project. That measure was, in fact, thrown into the scales whenever the

advocates of pending legislation sought Sangamon support.

And such calls came frequently enough, because well-nigh every member of

this remarkable Assembly had his own particular interest to serve. It

took the form, generally speaking, of some scheme for so-called

“internal improvements,” whereby the politicians tried to satisfy a

mania for overnight development that had recently obsessed the

inhabitants of the State--a mania which was now about to reach its

culmination in a series of extravagant enactments. One eager statesman

came charged by his constituents with the duty of securing a railroad;

another must obtain an appropriation for a canal, another a State road;

still another was under orders to have this stream or that made more

widely navigable; and so on through the whole range of public

betterments. A hungrier crowd of the people’s chosen Representatives has

seldom been seen to clamor around the “pork barrel.” It seemed as if

each man’s political life depended upon securing and carrying home a

generous helping. To that end, other interests were freely sacrificed,

while “log-rolling,” as the expressive idiom for the trading of votes

sometimes phrased it, became the order of the day.

Few if any among these struggling legislators appear to have marketed

their influence more profitably than did the members from Sangamon

County; and the most able “log-roller” in even that proficient band is

said, beyond a question, to have been Abraham Lincoln. Maneuvering his

followers so as to take advantage of every turn, arraying their united

strength solidly for or against the designs of other delegations, as

those delegations declared themselves during the preliminary skirmishes

to be allies or opponents of Springfield, winning over some members by

appeals to personal interests, others by appeal to sheer

good-fellowship,--adroit, tireless, unruffled,--Lincoln at last

surmounted all obstacles, and brought this unique campaign to a

triumphant finish. The “Long Nine” won. Springfield carried the day, and

by a joint vote of both houses, in the closing days of the session, that

town became their choice for the permanent capital of Illinois.

Great was the rejoicing throughout the Sangamon region over this

achievement. And no less elated--need we add?--were the citizens of the

little prairie burg so suddenly raised to prominence. They welcomed the

returning delegation as they might have welcomed a band of conquering

heroes. Nothing was too good in Springfield for the men who had brought

it this coveted civic honor. Members of the “Long Nine” were fêted and

lauded on every hand, while their leader particularly came in for

grateful attentions. At one complimentary dinner sixty guests are said

to have joined in the toast: “Abraham Lincoln: He has fulfilled the

expectations of his friends and disappointed the hopes of his

enemies.”[v-16]

But “his enemies,” or, more correctly speaking, the enemies of

Springfield, were still, in a way, to be reckoned with. Some of them

took their defeat hard. They affected to believe, if they did not indeed

actually believe, that the Sangamon interest had won unfairly. In fact,

above the notes of triumph with which the victors celebrated their

joyful homecoming might be heard the discordant voices of these

chagrined opponents, charging trickery and corruption.

The brunt of such assaults naturally fell upon Lincoln. He it was who

had guided the activities of the “Long Nine,” and against him were now

directed the severest blows of their assailants. Yet the Sangamon chief,

by all accounts, proved equal to the occasion. Whenever his conduct or

that of his colleagues in the contest for the Capital was publicly

attacked, he is said to have replied with telling effect--so much so, in

truth, that before long all detractors were silenced, efforts to repeal

the act failed, and the Springfield forces, rejoicing in Lincoln’s

prowess, remained undisputed masters of the situation.[v-17] They

applauded without stint, as might have been expected, the man to whom

this was mainly due; but their enthusiastic approval of him is not by

any means the last word.

His course throughout the affair can hardly be deemed creditable in

every particular. The trading of votes between lawmakers may be

defensible, perhaps, under certain rare, not to say peculiar,

circumstances. Still, as such transactions are usually conducted, the

practice calls for condemnation. And when a group of Representatives,

like the “Long Nine,” go so far as to traffic through an entire session

in one concerted effort to secure the passage of a bill for the special

benefit of their constituents, the proceeding becomes grossly

reprehensible. In this bargain and sale of legislation, the extravagant

expenditure of public money is not by any means the most pernicious

feature. Among men so engaged, votes speak louder than conscience,--yes,

louder, on occasion, than all the Ten Commandments taken together. For

your true “log-rollers” are prone--if we may paraphrase the words of a

famous statesman--to consider themselves in politics, not in ethics.

Their first few lapses from correct parliamentary principles open the

way too often for further and still further deviations, until the

standards of nearly a whole legislature seem warped out of their

accustomed grooves; an indefinable laxness creeps into actions which

have no concern whatever with these “log-rolling” measures, and the

let-down in moral tone, brought about by repeated departures from the

loftier plane of disinterested lawmaking, hardly stops short, at times,

of general demoralization. To what extent this actually happened in the

Tenth General Assembly of Illinois is not now definitely known. But

prevailing conditions there were manifestly far from ideal; and as some

of the fault, at least, was chargeable to the “Long Nine,” he who stood

at their head must take his share of the blame.

In fairness to Lincoln, however, it should be said--for what such a plea

is worth--that any idea of wrongdoing probably never entered the young

man’s mind. He and his colleagues had merely pursued tactics tolerated,

if indeed they were not sanctioned, by the customs of the period. During

those raw pioneer days, not a few politicians looked upon votes as

legitimate objects of barter; and to so flagrant an extreme, it will be

remembered, were their views carried in the Illinois Legislature of

1836-37, that the Assembly became a veritable market-place. Amidst this

whirl of chaffering the member from New Salem was seen to move with

steady tread. True, he had shown himself to be a poor business man at

home; yet here his faculty for one peculiar kind of commerce apparently

fell little short of genius. So it turned out that when the last trade

was made, when the deals had all been closed, and Speaker Semple’s gavel

sounded for final settlements, the big winning was disclosed--as we have

seen--in Lincoln’s grasp. Then it was that his defeated antagonists set

up those cries of outraged virtue. Then only did they discover the

depths of moral turpitude into which he had fallen. But their censure

came with painfully diminished effect from men who had themselves

employed, though unsuccessfully, the very methods for which they now

condemned him; and one is curious to know by what system of ethical

adjustments they thought to reconcile their own acts with these tardy

expressions of principle. In any event, the accusers may be said to have

come into court, as the phrase goes, with unclean hands--at least, with

hands no cleaner than those of the associate whom they denounced.

Indeed, when all is said, the head and front of his offending, as far as

these angry politicians were concerned, will be found to lie in the fact

that he had beaten the gentlemen at their own game.

Here again let the chronicle do justice to Lincoln. He had indeed played

this game--if game it may be called--for all that was in him, but he

certainly had not evinced the reckless disregard of public interests

that the fault-finding losers tried to lay at his door. On the contrary,

he believed himself to have been serving the whole State, no less than

Springfield, with every trade whereby the “Long Nine,” in exchange for

what they wanted, lent their votes and their influence, as has just been

narrated, to establish a comprehensive, if lavish, system of “internal

improvements.” Such undertakings had, in fact, engaged Lincoln’s

imagination from the very beginning of his public life. Pledged to them,

in a sense, and convinced of their value, he aimed at associating

himself in the West, as other politicians had done elsewhere through the

country, with some splendid scheme for public development. It was during

this period that Lincoln, emulating the example of the man to whom the

Empire State was chiefly indebted for its Erie Canal, confided to his

friend Joshua F. Speed an ambition to make himself “the De Witt Clinton

of Illinois.”[v-18] The aspiration looks futile enough now in the light

of what ensued. Still, at that time all observers, with rare exceptions,

confidently expected to see this single Legislature, by passing a series

of Utopian enactments, swing the young prairie Commonwealth into a

millennium of prosperity; while the politicians, regardless of party,

outvied one another in doing the people’s bidding. Demands for these

wonder-working measures were heard on every side. An influential lobby

invaded the capital to urge their adoption. Petitions poured in upon the

members. Their newspapers from home came full of buoyant--not to say

flamboyant--articles advising liberal action. Mass meetings and

conventions, voicing the general infatuation with sonorous resolutions,

went so far as to issue parliamentary orders to their Representatives.

In fact, the Sangamon delegation itself had been instructed by citizens

of the county assembled at such a gathering to give the much-discussed

“system” unqualified support. Obviously, therefore, when Lincoln

exchanged improvement votes for Springfield votes, he put a price upon

aid which would finally have been given, in any event. Circumstances

merely enabled him, as he doubtless thought, to serve his constituents,

indeed the whole State, by what he gave no less than by what he

received. And if his tactics deftly took toll of legislation going, so

to say, as well as coming, the process was, in its political aspect, at

least, consistent enough. From all of which, those who cannot bear to

contemplate a good man overstepping the narrow path ever so little will

derive such comfort as they may; while others who seem inclined to

insist upon a hero, immaculate no less than great, must bring themselves

to realize that the best of men are sometimes--particularly during their

formative years--seen to walk in the shadows.

This one cloud, moreover, on Lincoln’s early political record was not

without the proverbial silver lining. “Honest Abe’s” better self still

held sway. Indeed, ideals of public service as he then conceived them

were never quite lost sight of, even amidst the temptations incident to

a fiercely waged parliamentary campaign. His fault began and ended with

the trading of votes. Beyond that, neither the low-leveled practices

which prevailed on every hand, nor the pressure of colleagues, eager to

triumph at any cost, could carry him. The Machiavellian doctrine that

victory brings glory, whatever the method of achieving it, evidently

formed no part of the creed which directed his “log-rolling” ambitions.

And, ardently as he longed to win the day for Springfield, no

questionable proposals, however alluring, were allowed to blunt in any

further degree his fine sense of moral values.

A notable instance, aptly illustrating this, occurred when the struggle

over the seat of government was at its height. An effort had been made

to combine the friends of removal with those who were laboring for a

certain measure of dubious character. What that measure entailed is not

now definitely known, but Lincoln regarded it with strong disapproval.

He had so expressed himself and the negotiations languished. At last, a

number of Representatives, who were severally interested on both sides

of the projected deal, met to discuss it in a private caucus. Their

deliberations lasted, we are told, nearly all night; yet as the Sangamon

leader refused to forego his objections, they finally adjourned without

having reached the desired agreement. It takes more than one such

repulse, however, to discourage politicians. Another conference was

presently arranged, and, as if to make sure that sufficient pressure

would be exerted upon the recalcitrant member, a number of prominent

citizens, not in the Legislature but anxious for Springfield’s success,

were craftily invited to attend. An earnest discussion ensued. Those who

favored the compact employed every argument that they could frame in its

behalf. Some of the speakers, deploring Lincoln’s inconvenient

scruples, begged him to lay them aside, join his friends, and make sure

of the capital for Sangamon County, but without avail. Finally, after

midnight, when the candles were burning low and the talk had well-nigh

run its course, he arose to close the debate. What Lincoln said has not

been preserved entire, but an admirer, who described the speech as “one

of the most eloquent and powerful” to which he had ever listened, has

handed down these concluding words: “You may burn my body to ashes and

scatter them to the winds of heaven; you may drag my soul down to the

regions of darkness and despair to be tormented forever; but you will

never get me to support a measure which I believe to be wrong, although

by doing so I may accomplish that which I believe to be right.”[v-19]

How much provocation the speaker had for this burst of perfervid oratory

cannot now be determined, yet whatever one may say about his rhetoric,

there can be no doubt concerning his good faith. That meeting adjourned,

as its predecessor had done, without taking the questionable step so

warmly advocated by most of the persons present; and one of the

participants, at least, must be credited with having made clear that

even a “log-roller” may set conscientious bounds to the scope of his

operations.

Nor was this the only occasion on which Lincoln vetoed the unseemly

devices to which some of his too eager partisans would have resorted.

They had accepted willingly enough, while the contest for the capital

lasted, such conditions as were imposed by the general act upon

whatever place might become the seat of government. But after the

victory went to Sangamon, these conditions did not appear quite so

attractive. One of them, in fact, gave the Springfield people some

uneasiness. This was a clause which required the successful community to

raise fifty thousand dollars, by private subscriptions, in order that a

corresponding amount, appropriated under the act for the erection of

needful public buildings, might be refunded to the State. What looks

like a small sum now, must have loomed large in those days on the

financial horizon of a struggling little frontier town. And its task of

collecting the required donations, difficult under normal conditions,

became doubly so during the hard times which were ushered in this same

year by the historic panic of 1837.

The situation seemed to call for relief of some kind. So a way out

suggested itself to an ambitious young politician who had recently taken

up his residence in Springfield. This was Stephen A. Douglas, the newly

elected Register of the Land Office. His scheme, prefiguring many adroit

political shifts to come, had the characteristic merit of being at once

simple and efficacious. It proposed, in a word, repudiation. By means of

an innocent little legislative amendment, deftly applied, Springfield

was to step out from under this burden and let the cost slip back to its

original place, on the shoulders of the State. But Lincoln again barred

the way.

“We have the benefit,” said he. “Let us stand to our obligation like

men.”[v-20]

And so they did. Yet money for the first two payments--there were to be

three in all--was scraped together with some difficulty; and worse

still, when the third installment came due, no funds whatever seemed

collectible. Many of the subscribers had become impoverished, while none

of them were flush. So the required sum, $16,666.67, was borrowed from

the State Bank of Illinois on a note that bore the signatures of one

hundred and one citizens. They took eight years to discharge the debt.

How hard it came for some of them to meet their share, what economies

were practiced, what sacrifices made, can, in the nature of things,

never be known. The episode itself, stripped of all these romantic

details,--a simple tale of plain good faith,--must suffice for history.

And it does suffice. For now, after more than two thirds of a century

has elapsed, that painfully liquidated note is still extant. Framed and

displayed in a banking-house at Springfield, where all who enter may

see, it serves as a memorial to the rectitude of the community during

those trying times.

They were trying times, indeed, and to none of these one hundred and one

signers more so, perhaps, than to him who had written the name, “A.

Lincoln.” When he came to the recently chosen capital, as we have seen,

shortly after adjournment of the General Assembly, to seek his fortunes

at the bar, this young politician’s financial condition was, in a sense,

worse than penniless. The burden of “the national debt” lay upon him,

and the few dollars in his pocket did not suffice--the reader will

recall--to supply his most pressing wants. How those wants were met,

first by a seat at Butler’s table, then by a place in Speed’s bed, may

also be recalled. And possibly it is as well to add--for all these

circumstances are of peculiar significance now--even the horse which

carried him, a few weeks later, on his first trip around the circuit was

borrowed from a colleague, Robert L. Wilson, of the “Long Nine.” That a

man who had been one of the leading actors in an orgy of extravagant

legislation should emerge from the session so impoverished as to be

dependent momentarily upon the hospitality of one friend for food, of

another for shelter, and of still another for the means of gaining a

livelihood, is its own commentary on his probity. Nor does this appear

less noteworthy, in the light of a commonly accepted belief that the

“internal improvement” measures were tainted with personal corruption.

The whirl of enticing opportunities during those rapid days is said to

have swept more than one legislator off his feet. Yet the Sangamon chief

stood steadfast. He could see nothing attractive in the illicit, or at

least dubious, gains which were garnered by perverting official duties

to selfish ends. In fact, then and thereafter--during that sinister

period, as well as throughout his entire four consecutive terms in the

Illinois House--Lincoln’s record, so far as such matters went, was

spotless. Like certain other political leaders to whom private fortunes

have been lacking, he followed the rule laid down in one of Daniel

Webster’s aphorisms: “The man who enters public life takes upon himself

a vow of poverty, to the religious observance of which he is bound so

long as he remains in it.”

There was, however, nothing ascetic, we hasten to add, about “the

godlike” Daniel’s life--public or private. Improvident and debt-ridden,

he indulged himself, to the point of reckless extravagance, in a mode of

living beside which the Illinoisan’s simple habits formed a striking

contrast. They were both poor, it is true, but from very different

causes. What some of these were, in Lincoln’s case, the stories

recounting his hapless business ventures and his unprofitable methods at

the bar have already disclosed. For the rest, an engrossing interest in

politics with its resultant sacrifices, as the years went on, of time,

attention, even money, hardly served to improve the situation. One is

prepared, therefore, to learn that when funds ran low he too made shift

to eke out his resources by applying the familiar mathematical

formula,--three from two we cannot take so I borrow.

Lincoln’s very entrance into public life had been made, it must be

confessed, through the drab doors of debt. After his first election to

the Legislature, while still at New Salem, he was confronted by a

perplexing question. How could a countryman, wholly without means,

acquire presentable clothes, travel all the way down to the seat of

government at Vandalia, and maintain himself there until pay-day in a

manner befitting the dignity of a lawmaker? This particular countryman

was not long contriving the answer. Calling on Coleman Smoot, a

prosperous farmer in the district, he asked: “Smoot, did you vote for

me?”

The answer was a prompt affirmative.

“Well,” said Lincoln, “you must loan me money to buy suitable clothing,

for I want to make a decent appearance in the Legislature.”

Here was a whimsical reversal of the course that funds too often take in

passing between candidate and voter. But Smoot, who had a warm

admiration for the new member, entered cordially into the humor of the

affair. He handed out two hundred dollars--enough it would seem to meet

all of Lincoln’s prospective expenses; and these two hundred dollars--we

have the lender’s own statement for the fact--were some time thereafter

repaid, “according to promise.”[v-21]

The same amount of money, taking the same unaccustomed direction,

figured in another peculiar election episode. On the latter occasion,

however, a contribution was made to further the office-seeker’s

election, rather than to help him out afterwards. And this is how it

happened. During a vigorously contested canvass, the Whigs raised a

purse of two hundred dollars which Joshua F. Speed handed Lincoln to

defray his expenses. When the election was over, the victorious

candidate brought back one hundred and ninety-nine dollars and

twenty-five cents. Giving this to his friend, with a request that it be

distributed again among the subscribers, he said: “I did not need the

money. I made the canvass on my own horse. My entertainment, being at

the houses of friends, cost me nothing; and my only outlay was

seventy-five cents for a barrel of cider, which some farmhands insisted

I should treat them to.”[v-22]

Lincoln’s failure to find a use for these funds was in keeping with the

simple honesty which prompted their return. Yet throughout this very

period he must have been harried, not only by his old business debts,

but also by the several successors to the Smoot loan that his

necessities, from time to time, brought into being. Nor were such

accommodations always from friends. We catch a glimpse, early in 1839,

of a maturing note at the bank that had to be renewed, and the interest

charges on which had to be paid.[v-23] Indeed, many years were destined

to elapse before Lincoln could wholly free himself from the meshes of

these carking obligations. They held him meanwhile fast-bound among the

debtor class, and what he endured, intensifying a natural tenderness for

all unfortunates, stirred his sympathies to their very depths in behalf

of other men who might be similarly circumstanced.

The situation, however, called for more than mere sympathy. Victims of

exorbitant interest charges were to be met with, during the first third

of the nineteenth century, on every hand, in Illinois. There, as

elsewhere, capital when staked against the hazards of pioneer ventures

exacted heavy tolls. Banks and “moneyed institutions,” so-called, were

restricted, it is true, by an act passed in 1819, to returns not

exceeding six per cent; but under that same law other investors

expressly had leave to make contracts without any limitations upon the

extent of their charges, and for the most part--needless to say--they

took advantage of the privilege. Rates running all the way from one

hundred and fifty to three hundred per cent were not uncommon in the

placing of loans, while the customary figures hovered about fifty per

cent. The oppression and suffering which these burdens entailed gave

rise to clamorous demands for relief. Yet the way out seemed far from

plain. How borrowers could be protected against ruin due to extortion,

without being plunged as hopelessly into disaster through ill-advised

legislation which, by discouraging lenders, might cut off all supplies,

was the form which the problem took.

It appears to have been presented from many angles during the canvass of

1832; and Lincoln, as a raw candidate for the Legislature, had taken a

hand, even then, in the solution. What he proposed was thus set forth

among the postulates of that first formal political document, his

“Address to the People of Sangamon County”:--

“It seems as though we are never to have an end to this baneful and

corroding system, acting almost as prejudicially to the general

interests of the community as a direct tax of several thousand dollars

annually laid on each county for the benefit of a few individuals only,

unless there be a law made fixing the limits of usury. A law for this

purpose, I am of opinion, may be made without materially injuring any

class of people. In cases of extreme necessity, there could always be

means found to cheat the law; while in all other cases it would have its

intended effect. I would favor the passage of a law on this subject

which might not be very easily evaded. Let it be such that the labor and

difficulty of evading it could only be justified in cases of greatest

necessity.”[v-24]

A singular programme, truly, yet what could one expect, in those times

of loose financiering, from an embryo prairie politician just pipping

his shell? Older heads--in fact, seasoned lawmakers and economists

without number, from the very beginning of commercial history down to

the present day--hardly make a better showing when it comes to devising

how this “tooth of usury,” as an eminent Lord Chancellor once said, may

“be grinded that it bite not too much.” Lincoln’s naïve plea that means

could be found, when necessary, “to cheat the law, while in all other

cases it would have its intended effect,” reveals a certain uneasy sense

of the fatal weakness running through all such legislation. And one is

at a loss what to marvel over most,--the candor with which he admits

this defect, or the childlike disregard of public ethics involved in his

awkward attempt to meet the difficulty by suggesting occasional

violations of the statute.

That subterfuge reminds us of a story, as Abe himself used to say,--one

of his own, in fact. He told it, not long afterwards, on the stump, at

the expense of an opponent who gave equivocal answers to some searching

questions. This man, Lincoln said, was like a hunter he had once known.

Boasting of his marksmanship on a certain occasion, and telling how he

brought down an animal during the season when a calf might easily be

mistaken for a deer, the fellow concluded his recital with the fine

flourish: “I shot at it so as to hit it if it was a deer, and miss it if

a calf.”

What might pass for a hit-or-miss bill, limiting the rate of interest to

not more than twelve per cent, became a law during the following winter.

But as Lincoln had failed of election to the Legislature which enacted

this statute, none of its shortcomings can fairly be laid, except in a

remote sense, at his door. Such was not the case, however, with several

important financial measures adopted by the succeeding sessions that he

did attend. We have seen how he plunged into the excesses which grew out

of the “internal improvement” craze, and though many fellow-members of

both parties are also chargeable with what took place, few if any of

them were more active than he in shaping the course of this hapless

legislation. It was under his leadership that the “Long Nine” exerted

their very considerable influence, as has been told, to put the

so-called “system” through. And a merry dance they had, without too much

thought concerning who should pay the fiddler. Soberer men, trying here

or there in small numbers to block the way, were swept aside. An

infatuated Assembly, hardly stopping to count the cost, voted

appropriations for public works aggregating over ten millions of

dollars;[v-25] and interest-bearing securities were authorized to an

amount not exceeding eleven millions. Of this sum, eight millions were

to be borrowed for the works, two millions for the State Bank of

Illinois, and one million for the Bank of Illinois at Shawneetown. These

two institutions became the fiscal agents of the State, with a proviso

that their net earnings should be applied to the payment of interest, as

it accrued, on “improvement” bonds. Nothing could have been simpler

and--less dependable. The debt so created--at least such part of it as

found a market--was out of all proportion to the young State’s proper

credit or resources. Consequently, when financial ruin swept over the

continent in the spring of 1837, not many Commonwealths were, relatively

speaking, more deeply involved than Illinois.

To meet what looked like an impending crisis, Governor Duncan called a

special session of the General Assembly in the following July, and urged

either modification or repeal of the “internal improvement” acts. But

his efforts were fruitless. The Legislature refused to destroy or mar

its handiwork. Most of those jocund castle-builders could not bring

themselves to believe that the ambitious structure which they had begun

to rear with so much pride was, after all, a mere house of cards,

shaking in the first gust of bad weather and ready to fall about their

ears. Prophecies of such a disaster met, as might have been expected,

with stubborn optimism, especially from the ranks of the Whig minority.

They stood pledged as a political unit to the policy of munificent

public works; and enough Democrats felt similarly committed to join them

in bringing about a rejection of the Governor’s plea.

More than that, during the following sessions, under Lincoln’s

guidance--for he had meanwhile become the recognized leader of his party

in the House--these “improvement” men, still bat-eyed, reached the

climax of their folly, and actually enlarged the scope of the enterprise

by nearly one million dollars. The rest is soon told. Hardly had this

last reckless step been taken when a wave of that utter demoralization

which marked the panic struck Illinois with crushing force. Improvement

bonds could no longer be sold except at ruinous discounts. Some of the

securities had been entrusted to bankers who failed, while other parcels

were moved under circumstances which smelt strongly of fraud.

Collections, moreover, seemed impossible. The treasury of the State was

nearly empty. Its credit, if not quite gone, was badly shaken, and so

were all its fond illusions. The dazzling game had, in fact, come to an

end. Without funds or prospects for raising any, the famous “system”

collapsed. Obviously what the situation now required left but slender

choice of action. The mischief already done had to be undone, as fully

as circumstances would allow, and the “internal improvement” laws must

be repealed. Yet the Whigs did not take kindly to this programme. They

gave ground sullenly, Lincoln voting against repeal with the rest of his

party through several sessions, until at last the logic of events forced

them to help their Democratic colleagues put the whole deplorable

business “down in a lump,” as he himself expressed it, “without benefit

of clergy.”[v-26]

Unfortunately there was one detail that could not be put down so

summarily. The public debt, which had been piled up with such assurance,

remained to perplex its crestfallen creators. They discovered, too late,

that bonds can be more easily voted than annulled; and while casting

about for a way out of their dilemma, they found themselves facing an

interest day with no adequate balance in sight to pay the bill. For a

brief period Illinois honor hung in the balance. Some of these precious

legislators wished to repudiate the entire indebtedness

outright--principal as well as interest; others, not quite so shameless,

proposed that the Government, disregarding face values, should deal with

the bonds on the basis of what it had received for them when they were

sold; while still others favored discrimination against such of the

securities only as had been disposed of illegally or acquired by

questionable means.

With the last of these Lincoln agreed so far as concerned bonds held by

those who had themselves been parties to fraudulent transfers.

Otherwise, none of the suggested expedients won his approval. He evinced

no sympathy for repudiation, in whatever form it presented itself, nor

was his unmercenary mind greatly exercised over the money that had been

misspent. What did concern him mightily at this juncture, though, was

the unmistakable trend toward dishonesty and bad faith into which such

ideas were luring the State. To head off that tendency, he set himself

the task of raising somehow at once sufficient funds for the accruing

interest. It seemed, in a sense, peculiarly his affair. As a member of

the Committee on Finance for three successive terms, and as the

acknowledged leader of those who had been most active in passing this

wildcat legislation, Lincoln’s share of the responsibility was no small

one. He frankly admitted it. Yet here, again, the man’s sterling

character redeemed the faults of his business training. However blindly

he may have groped with the others among the mazes of these financial

and economic ventures, when the time came at last to settle for their

mistakes, he saw, with crystal clearness, that anything short of payment

in full would spell dishonor. The very language of the “improvement” act

itself fixed this standard, unless indeed we are to regard as a mere

stock-jobber’s flourish the words, “for which payments and redemption,

well and truly to be made and effected, the faith of the State of

Illinois is hereby irrevocably pledged.”[v-27]

But how were the needed funds to be obtained? A short-time loan secured

by hypothecated bonds had been proposed, and the idea met with favor.

But Lincoln objected. It would, he claimed, carry them along merely a

few months, and leave the problem still unsolved. His solution, “after

turning the matter over in every way,” was to issue “interest bonds”

which should be met eventually by taxes derived from public lands.[v-28]

Both these plans were far from ideal. They are suggestive of the shifts

resorted to by that impecunious old gentleman who thanked God because he

had succeeded, at last, in borrowing enough money to pay his debts.

The alternative presented to Illinois, however, of meeting its

obligations by laying a heavy direct tax upon the impoverished people of

the State was, as Lincoln truly said, out of the question. Consequently

we find him, when his own measure failed of adoption, helping to put

through the short-time loan. In fact, by that means the interest

charges payable during 1841 were met, as they became due; and one ugly

crisis was, for the time being, averted. Still, the inevitable crash had

merely been postponed, not prevented. Illinois defaulted on its bonds

during the following year. By that time, however, Lincoln, having

attended his last session as a Representative, was spared the

humiliation of officially facing this disgrace.

Other ordeals growing out of the general disaster were less easy to

avoid. A notable instance had run through several of Lincoln’s preceding

terms, when the State Bank of Illinois found itself in deep water.

Compelled, like so many similar institutions, to suspend specie payment

through the panic days of 1837, that enterprise seemed doomed to certain

destruction, because under the law such a suspension for sixty days

together was to be followed by forfeiture of its charter and liquidation

of its affairs. But those affairs, the reader will remember, were

concerned, to an intimate degree, with the recently adopted scheme for

“internal improvements.” In fact, the two interests had become so

closely interlocked that whatever menaced the stability of the bank

might well have been deemed a source of danger to the State.

Naturally, no time was lost in providing the remedy; and an Assembly,

convened during the summer of 1837, extended the period during which

specie could legally be withheld “until the end of the next general or

special session.” The fateful day came, but not the resumption of specie

payment. So the Legislature that met in December, 1839, after listening

to the several reports made by a joint select investigating committee of

which Lincoln was a member, revived the forfeited charter and granted

still further grace to “the close of the next session.” Conditions,

however, so far as available specie went, became worse rather than

better. Accordingly, when the following Assembly--a special one--was

called in November, 1840, at Springfield, to provide funds for defraying

interest on the bonded debt, that brief sitting alone seemingly

intervened between the bank and ruin.

This prospect mightily gratified the Democrats. They had grown hostile

toward the “rag-barons,” as these delinquent capitalists were then

frequently called; while the Whigs, on the contrary, saw in their plight

nothing short of a public calamity. So Lincoln and his followers

determined to keep the House, which met at that time in the Methodist

Church, from finally adjourning until the approaching regular Assembly,

within a few days, might enable them to give the bank a new lease of

life. An earnestly contested parliamentary struggle ensued. The Whig

minority cannot be said to have made much headway save toward the close

of the session, after attendance in the House had thinned out, and the

Democrats were ready to vote adjournment without day. Then the friends

of the bank, under Lincoln’s leadership, set about warding off that

stroke by absenting themselves in sufficient numbers to break the

quorum. This procedure required alert team-play. While Lincoln and his

colleague Joseph Gillespie remained to demand the ayes and noes, their

associates left in a body. Directly afterwards, when the opponents of

the bank tried to vote a final adjournment, they were halted, as had

been planned, by the point of order, “No quorum.” A call of the House

having been ordered, the sergeant-at-arms rounded up a number of the

absentees and brought them in. Amidst much excitement Lincoln hurried to

the church door. It was locked. Turning as quickly to a window, with the

faithful Gillespie and Asahel Gridley, of McLean County, at his heels,

he jumped out, but not before the House had succeeded in adjourning.

There seemed still to be a chance for the State Bank, however. That

ill-starred enterprise had not quite reached the closing stage. Within a

few week’s its flickering life was again prolonged by legislative means,

and the end was again postponed, but not, we should add, for long. Final

dissolution presently set in. And after clinging to existence against

desperate odds, through some very trying months, the bank collapsed, at

last, beyond all hope of recovery. As for Lincoln, the lengths to which

he had gone in his futile efforts to save it left him penitent. He would

gladly have relegated that discreditable exit through the church window

to the limbo of things best forgotten. But the public memory is

tenacious of such picturesque misdeeds, and long after what really

mattered in the State Bank’s tragic story had passed from men’s minds,

the ghost of this little escapade returned at times to trouble its

inventor.[v-29]

There were not many disquieting recollections of that sort to vex

Lincoln’s peace of mind; and happily so, for he became sensitive in

later days concerning them. When all is said, however, the few lapses

just disclosed--lapses which his admirers might well have wished

otherwise--should perhaps be charged to a callow excess of legislative

ardor rather than to a deficiency in correct political principles. For

Lincoln’s conduct as a politician--that is to say his conduct regarded

from the personal rather than the parliamentary point of view--was above

reproach. Indeed, he bore himself where his own interests were concerned

with an attention to the niceties of honor that evoked admiring

comments. How far these encomiums went may be inferred from a typical

one by Judge Samuel C. Parks, who wrote: “I have often said that for a

man who was for the quarter of a century both a lawyer and a politician,

he was the most honest man I ever knew.”[v-30]

That same rectitude, in fact, which debarred him from taking a shabby

case at law when cases were not too plentiful, kept his politics

unsoiled. The man’s ambition was keen, keener by far than even his need

of fees; yet the closest scrutiny reveals no personal let-down anywhere

in his code while following either pursuit. Lincoln failed to conceive,

despite certain commonly accepted tenets to the contrary, among public

men the world over, why there should be one kind of conscience for the

private citizen, and another, of a wholly different variety, for the

politician.

How punctilious a campaigner this man could be is illustrated by a

little incident that took place on one occasion when he was running for

the Legislature. A candidate for another place--an office-seeker of

whom he did not approve--accompanied Lincoln to the polls on election

day, and ostentatiously voted for him with the hope, no doubt, of

securing a similar compliment in return. But his cast went far wide of

its mark. For Lincoln, ignoring the bait, greatly to the admiration of

those who saw the occurrence, voted against him. Log-rolling to increase

his own vote at election time and log-rolling to further the passage of

a bill were acts so dissimilar in the eyes of the young member from

Sangamon that he would not stoop to the one, while he made almost a fine

art of the other.

Lincoln looked with disfavor, even during those ill-regulated days, upon

the methods employed by unscrupulous politicians to attain their ends.

He denounced the whole class as “a set of men who have interests aside

from the interests of the people, and who, to say the most of them, are,

taken as a mass, at least one long step removed from honest men.” The

“holier-than-thou” tone of this criticism must have flashed at the

moment through his mind, for he hastened to add: “I say this with the

greater freedom because, being a politician myself, none can regard it

as personal.”[v-31]

Somewhat of that same disapproval was more pithily expressed in another

country, at a later date, by no less a personage than Benjamin Disraeli

when, after sounding the depths and scaling the heights of English

public life through a period of strenuous years, he remarked to a

colleague: “Look at it as you will, ours is a beastly profession.”

Benjamin and Abraham had not many traits in common: they were the

products of vastly different systems; yet a striking resemblance runs

through their fine sense of personal honor, their prolonged struggles

with debt, their disregard for money, and their contempt of those

engaged in politics to serve corrupt private ends. Venality among

office-holders early aroused Lincoln’s indignation. He could sympathize

with nearly any human weakness but dishonesty, and the dishonesty of

trusted public servants seemed to him doubly reprehensible.

Consequently, in dealing with such thieves, this gentle man, usually so

tender of other men’s sensibilities, smote and spared not. In fact, so

severe could be his blows that the scholarly English leader--expert at

sarcasm though he was--is credited with no more scathing utterance than

the Illinoisan pronounced against certain rogues who had robbed the

American Government. Their castigation furnished a stirring incident to

the famous debate on “Subtreasuries” that took place at Springfield,

during December, 1839. Seven participants--four Democrats and three

Whigs--had spoken, when Lincoln closed the series in what some

considered the best effort of all. Addressing himself to the argument

made by a predecessor in the opposing camp, he said:--

“Mr. Lamborn insists that the difference between the Van Buren Party and

the Whigs is that although the former sometimes err in practice, they

are always correct in principle, whereas the latter are wrong in

principle; and, better to impress this proposition, he uses a figurative

expression in these words, ‘The Democrats are vulnerable in the heel,

but they are sound in the head and the heart.’ The first branch of the

figure,--that is, that the Democrats are vulnerable in the heel,--I

admit is not merely figuratively, but literally true. Who that looks but

for a moment at their Swartwouts, their Prices, their Harringtons, and

their hundreds of others, scampering away with the public money to

Texas, to Europe, and to every spot of the earth where a villain may

hope to find refuge from justice, can at all doubt that they are most

distressingly affected in their heels with a species of ‘running itch.’

It seems that this malady of their heels operates on these sound-headed

and honest-hearted creatures very much like the cork leg in the comic

song did on its owner; which, when he had once got started on it, the

more he tried to stop it, the more it would run away. At the hazard of

wearing this point threadbare, I will relate an anecdote which seems too

strikingly in point to be omitted. A witty Irish soldier, who was always

boasting of his bravery when no danger was near, but who invariably

retreated without orders at the first charge of an engagement, being

asked by his captain why he did so, replied,--‘Captain, I have as brave

a heart as Julius Cæsar ever had; but, somehow or other, whenever danger

approaches, my cowardly legs will run away with it.’

“So with Mr. Lamborn’s party. They take the public money into their hand

for the most laudable purpose that wise heads and honest hearts can

dictate; but before they can possibly get it out again, their rascally

‘vulnerable heels’ will run away with them.”[v-32]

These thieving officials were of a type common--far too common--among

the spoilsmen billeted upon their country by the party in power during

those easy-going days. Yet, numerous as the grafters must have been,

Lincoln did not allow mere weight of numbers to unbalance his sense of

their guilt. Nor was he less keenly alive to other forms of dishonesty

that manifested themselves, from time to time, among certain

self-seeking politicians, who, trimming their sails deftly at critical

moments between conflicting breezes, somehow turned up, with charters

revised to date, in any snug-harbor which, by an odd coincidence,

happened to contain the lucrative offices.

How hard he could be upon such gentry may be inferred from the

oft-related retort to George Forquer. It was uttered early in Lincoln’s

career, before he had attained any considerable public standing, against

a man, moreover, who as a lawyer, Representative, State Senator,

Attorney-General, and Secretary of State, appears to have ranked for

years among the ablest leaders in Illinois. Forquer, having recently

swung over from the Whigs to the Democrats, had just been rewarded with

an appointment to the Registry of the Land Office at Springfield. He cut

a wide swathe, and his newly erected mansion, the finest in the city,

attracted attention, not alone for its beauty, but also because,

conspicuously displayed on the structure, rose the only lightning-rod to

be seen throughout the community. It was at about this time that the two

men crossed swords. Lincoln, making the canvass of 1836 for his

reëlection to the Legislature, spoke at a Springfield meeting with such

effect as to stir the listening Forquer, an acknowledged master of

invective, into a reply. The Register felt obliged to vindicate his

recently acquired Democratic principles, but what moved him most was a

conviction, as he explained it, that “this young man would have to be

taken down.” With a lofty assumption of superiority, the orator went on

to express regret over the unpleasant task which a sense of duty had

imposed upon him; yet the sentiment was apparently not allowed to dull

the keen edge of his sarcasm. For the onslaught is said to have been

uncommonly severe.

At its conclusion Lincoln, who had stood near, laboring under manifest

excitement while attentively regarding his assailant, remounted the

platform and made a rejoinder that has become historic. The final words

lingered for many years in the memories of those who heard them. One

listener, a devoted friend, has thus recalled what he believes to be

substantially Lincoln’s language: “Mr. Forquer commenced his speech by

announcing that the young man would have to be taken down. It is for

you, fellow citizens, not for me to say whether I am up or down. The

gentleman has seen fit to allude to my being a young man; but he forgets

that I am older in years than I am in the tricks and trades of

politicians. I desire to live, and I desire place and distinction; but I

would rather die now than, like the gentleman, live to see the day that

I would change my politics for an office worth three thousand dollars a

year, and then feel compelled to erect a lightning-rod to protect a

guilty conscience from an offended God.”[v-33]

The effect was electric. Forquer’s rod had not averted the lightning. He

had, in fact, received a grievous stroke. His antagonist was borne from

the court-house on the crest of an enthusiastic crowd; and during the

brief remainder of the turncoat’s life, Lincoln’s reproach stuck in the

man’s fame like a burdock on a woolly goat.

Forquer was not the only patriot of his peculiar stripe to arouse

Lincoln’s slow-rising ire. It reached the boiling point against another

politician who apparently placed a literal construction on that rather

loose epigram whereby party has been defined as “the madness of many for

the gain of a few.” In this particular instance, “the gain” fell short

of what at least one among the favored “few” considered his just share.

The malcontent, Charles H. Constable by name, lawyer by profession, and

Whig by election, was intensely dissatisfied with his political

associates. They had twice elected him to the State Senate; but

considering his talents, which are admitted to have been of no mean

order, he felt himself entitled to more substantial recognition. So

insistent became this feeling that habits of disloyalty grew with it;

and he lost no opportunity of denouncing the policy pursued by the party

toward its younger supporters. These fault-findings, moreover, waxed

especially censorious if Whig leaders happened to be present, as was the

case one day on circuit when Constable, with others, visited Judge Davis

and Lincoln in a room at Paris that the two occupied together.

On this occasion the man with a grievance lost no time in taking the

floor. He characterized the Whigs as “old-fogyish,” and charged them

with indifference to rising men; while the Democrats were lauded for

their progressive methods in these respects. What the grumbler said was

hardly borne out by the facts; and perhaps none of those present

realized this more keenly than Lincoln, whose own experience proved

quite the contrary. He listened in silence, however, for he was standing

at the time before a mirror, with his coat off, shaving. But when the

speaker went on to instance himself as a victim of political ingratitude

and neglect, Lincoln turned upon him sharply and said: “Mr. Constable, I

understand you perfectly, and have noticed for some time back that you

have been slowly and cautiously picking your way over to the Democratic

Party.”

An exciting scene ensued. Both men became so incensed that only the

combined efforts of all the others who were present sufficed to prevent

a fight, though Lincoln, as one of the spectators expressed it, seemed

for a time to be “terribly willing.” The quarrel was patched up,

however, but not Constable’s resentment against the Whig Party; for

shortly afterward, he revealed how just had been Lincoln’s rebuke by

deserting to the Democracy.[v-34]

These shifty place-hunters were doubly blamable in “Honest Abe’s” eyes.

He despised politicians who forsook their colors to secure promotions

under the standards of the enemy, not only because such acts were

dishonorable in themselves, but also, it must be confessed, because they

involved treason to political associates. For Lincoln was a partisan.

His temperament, no less than his fidelity to principle, made him a

champion eager and ever ready to battle for cherished convictions. But

the feudal days of single combat had passed. He did not believe in

battling alone. Like so many other public men of recent modern times, he

did believe in the organized expression of economic opinion which is

called a party. To him, as to them, it appeared obvious--almost

elemental--that voters who accept the same cardinal doctrines should

associate themselves together for united action, and that when several

such associations with conflicting views, tempered, however, by the

sober restraints of intelligent patriotism, confront one another in the

field of politics, there is an approach at least to well-balanced

government. The party in power deems itself answerable to the entire

nation for a successful administration, the party or parties out of

power feel an equal responsibility for watchful criticism; while the

system itself, though far from ideal, provides a practical solution to

some perplexing problems, and a safeguard of constitutional rights. As

for the rest, Lincoln’s common sense told him that within such

organizations alone was efficient political action possible. Explaining

this idea on one notable occasion, and speaking from the politician’s

not too lofty point of view, he said: “A free people, in times of peace

and quiet,--when pressed by no common danger,--naturally divide into

parties. At such times the man who is of neither party is not, cannot

be, of any consequence.”[v-35]

The speaker did, at an early day, become of “consequence.” It was as a

party man that he received the vote of the Whig minority for Speaker of

the Illinois House in 1838, and again in 1840.[v-36] During those stormy

sessions, the parliamentary leadership which went with this distinction

could have been held by a zealous partisan only. Lincoln was that, but

of course, be it said, he was abundantly more than that. For he

commended himself also to his colleagues by signal qualities of a

different character. In the first place, his remarkable talent for

mastery had come into play betimes. To quote Governor Reynolds: “As soon

as he got his bearings, got acquainted, and found how things were

drifting, he took the Legislature good-naturedly by the nose, and led

them, just like he did his township on the Sangamon.”[v-37]

Then, too, under this easy assumption of control were developing the

traits that draw men to a political chieftain. A ready grasp of public

questions, an equally ready skill in presenting them to the people or in

discussing them with an opponent, the never-failing humor which could

raise a laugh when a laugh was needed without too often leaving a sting

behind, an almost infallible intuition for the trend of the popular

will, certain charms of personality which endeared him to friends and

won over enemies, a natural aptitude for contriving measures of attack

and defense, an uncommon degree of courage,--moral as well as

physical,--and an even rarer fidelity to a high standard of honor,--all

these doubtless had their influence upon the vote. But that the choice

centered in him, apparently without a dissenting voice from among his

fellow Whigs, was also highly significant. For such a compliment

furnishes the measure of a leader’s devotion to his party. It was as a

partisan, moreover, that Lincoln figured prominently in Illinois affairs

during the succeeding twenty years, amidst a clash of men and principles

theretofore unparalleled for political rancor. The issues presented by

the problems of those stirring times had to be fought out vigorously on

party lines; and the Sangamon chief, plunging into the thick of the

fray, appears to have relished the zest of combat day by day, no less

than the occasional victory.

A man usually does best what he likes best to do. Lincoln loved

politics. It was the one pursuit outside of his profession that he

thoroughly enjoyed and in which he felt thoroughly at home. Almost any

time during those twenty years, with possibly one interval, people might

have said of him, as was said of another public man, “he eats, he

drinks, he sleeps politics.” But at no time could Lincoln have

truthfully forestalled Bismarck’s lament, “Politics has eaten up every

other hobby I had”; for in his case there were no other hobbies. From

early manhood to the end of his career, the art of government with its

kindred activities was Lincoln’s sole avocation. It is hardly

surprising, therefore, all in all, to observe what consummate skill he

brought to the service of the party. Indeed, a mere glance over this

period in his career reveals how proficient he must have been. For we

see him installing a system of nomination by convention among the

Whigs, despite prejudice and opposition; making the keynote speeches, as

they were called, in several warmly contested campaigns; drawing up the

official election circulars and appeals to the people; stumping the

field in his own behalf or in that of other local candidates; canvassing

the State on the electoral tickets of successive Presidential nominees;

adroitly taking advantage of dissensions in the opposing camp, while

striving with rare tact to compose the differences in his own; planning,

advising, controlling, until he became the ablest political manager, and

at last,--to anticipate somewhat,--the recognized authority in his

section on matters affecting the welfare of the organization.

Lincoln was what is commonly termed a “practical” politician. He knew

the ins and outs of vote-getting as only a seasoned campaigner can know

them. In fact, nothing of political significance seemed to escape his

notice. He could say, for the most part, where the big men of the State

would be found on any public question; nor was he less accurately

informed as to what might be expected from local magnates of lesser

degree. While if one of them did depart from his wonted course, in

principle or tactics, Lincoln’s intuitions might be trusted to

prefigure, with some nicety, the effect of that departure upon the man’s

popularity. For his grasp of political probabilities amounted almost to

genius. How this or that district would go under given circumstances was

repeatedly forecast by him on the eve of an election with unerring

precision; and when the returns came in, he manifested equal skill

among the figures. Every column had some story to tell him. Every gain

or loss was promptly noted, often, indeed, by the aid of his well-stored

memory alone; and at times, before the tables were completed, he would

place a prophetic finger on the changes which presaged defeat or

victory.

That such a man stood high in the party councils goes without saying. As

a member of the County Committee or the State Central Committee, his

views held full sway; and when he happened to be relieved of official

responsibility in the management of a campaign, those who were in charge

sent for him, at important junctures, to help them out. Speaking of

Lincoln’s services at these conferences, Horace White, who once acted as

secretary at State headquarters during a spirited canvass, said: “The

Committee paid the utmost deference to his opinions. In fact, he was

nearer to the people than they were. Traveling the circuit, he was

constantly brought in contact with the most capable and discerning men

in the rural community. He had a more accurate knowledge of public

opinion in central Illinois than any other man who visited the committee

rooms, and he knew better than anybody else what kind of arguments would

be influential with the voters, and what kind of men could best present

them.”[v-38]

Moreover, when it became necessary to meet or head off some critical

move on the part of their opponents, Lincoln brought to the fore, just

as he did in the courts, that crowning gift of worldly shrewdness which

not infrequently goes with simplicity of nature and downright honesty.

He did not mislead himself any more than he did his associates, for he

saw things as they actually were. He could put himself in the other

man’s place, and that is why he could make so close a calculation as to

what the other man, under given circumstances, would presumably do. “The

other man,” during one campaign, at least, appears to have been wanting

in such foresight. And when on that occasion the projects of the

Democrats miscarried, because they had failed to anticipate how

Lincoln’s side might act, the occurrence called forth one of his little

Menard County stories.

“This situation reminds me,” said he, “of three or four fellows out near

Athens, who went coon hunting one day. After being out some time the

dogs treed a coon, which was soon discovered in the extreme top of a

very tall oak tree. They had only one gun, a rifle; and after some

discussion as to who was the best shot, one was decided on. He took the

rifle and got into a good position. With the coon in plain view, lying

close on a projecting limb, and at times moving slowly along, the man

fired. But the coon was still on the limb, and a small bunch of leaves

from just in front of the coon fluttered down. The surprise and

indignation of the other fellows was boundless. All sorts of epithets

were heaped on ‘the best shot,’ and an explanation was demanded for his

failure to bring down the coon. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you see, boys, by gum,

I sighted just a leetle ahead, and ’lowed for the durned thing

crawling.’”[v-39]

When Lincoln, in the course of a political contest, allowed for

something to happen, it usually did not fall very far short of taking

place. A fatalist as to the great impelling current whereby a nation is

carried toward its destiny, he believed that social and civic causes,

however they may be impeded or diverted for a time in their operations,

must at last inevitably lead to corresponding effects. His fatalism,

however, was of the robust type. It recognized how important a part men

play in creating these forces, as well as in bringing about the results.

Miracles formed no part of his political creed, and he waited for none

to do his work. So we find him repeatedly in the thick of the conflict,

straining every nerve to gain a party victory. Such of his election-time

letters as have been preserved furnish illuminating evidence of how

industrious he could be. Appealing to this man, arguing with that,

advising one inquiring supporter in the rural districts, praising

another, warning a colleague of some aggressive step contemplated by

their opponents here, heartening a hard-pressed brother there, figuring,

explaining, forecasting, Lincoln pulled apparently every straight wire

which a vigorous use of the mails brought within his reach.

He appreciated the appeal direct at its full value. And to this, Gibson

W. Harris, one of the young men who sometimes assisted him, thus bore

witness in later years: “The duty fell to me of writing letters, at his

dictation, to influential men in the different counties, down to even

obscure precincts. Finding the task not only burdensome, but slow, I

suggested the use of a printed circular letter, but the proposal was

vetoed offhand. A printed letter, he said, would not have nearly the

same effect. A written one had the stamp of personality, was more

flattering to the recipient, and would tell altogether more in assuring

his good will, if not his support. So for several days the clerk was

kept busy in writing more letters. Young and inexperienced as I was, I

could not help noticing how shrewdly they were put together, and no two

exactly alike. He approached each correspondent in a different way, and

I soon reached the conclusion that the necessity he felt for doing this

was his weightiest reason, after all, for discarding type.”[v-40]

Lincoln did not lose sight, however, of the wider opportunities for

influencing voters presented by the printing-press. A tireless student

of newspapers himself, reading them in fact, during this period, almost

to the exclusion of all other general publications, Lincoln became so

familiar with the journals issued throughout the State that their

several party affiliations were, whenever he had occasion to recall

them, at his tongue’s end. Many an article from his pen, purporting to

be an expression of editorial opinion, appeared from time to time in

various Illinois sheets. Whether the respective editors, when they

adopted these contributions as their own, wholly eliminated the element

of deception that enters into such transactions, is perhaps a moot

question. One editor, at least, by a simple course avoided any

misunderstanding on the subject. This was Jacob Harding who published a

country newspaper in the southern part of the State. To him Lincoln

once wrote: “_Friend Harding_: I have been reading your paper for three

or four years, and have paid you nothing for it.” Enclosing ten dollars

the writer adds: “Put it into your pocket, say nothing further about

it.”

The journalist did as he was bid. But soon thereafter, when the generous

subscriber sent him a political article with the request for its

publication in the editorial columns of his “valued paper,” Harding

promptly declined, “because,” he explained, “I long ago made it a rule

to publish nothing as editorial matter not written by myself.”

The joke was on Lincoln. Laughing heartily over the letter, he read it

aloud to his law-partner, and said: “That editor has a rather lofty but

proper conception of true journalism.”[v-41]

This experience was exceptional, however. For in the main, Lincoln’s

newspaper contributions, like his personal missives, reached their

intended goals, as indeed did most of his projects over the still wider

ranges of party management. A practical politician, he employed

practical methods. That much-decried scheme of coördinated effort, which

for lack of a better term is commonly called “the machine,” owed its

development among the Whigs in Illinois more perhaps to him than to any

other leader. As early as 1840, upon the eve of the Harrison campaign,

he put forth a plan for thoroughly organizing the party within the

State. Four other men, it is true, were associated with him on the

Central Committee that had this matter in hand, but the enterprise was

largely his work. He wrote the circular letter which explained the

system they had adopted, and which announced explicitly what would be

required thereafter of each party worker. From the several county

committees that were arbitrarily appointed by the terms of the circular,

down through district committees and sub-committees,--even to the

individual voters,--every Whig was assigned to his part in the

undertaking.[v-42] A more complete programme for the control of

political operations is not easily conceived. Nor do we often meet with

a document of this class so frankly expressed in the imperative mood.

Its language is that of a master to his men. The crack of the party whip

seemingly still rings, even at this late day, through the whole

performance; and the hand which grasped the whip did so with a vigor not

unlike that customarily displayed, in more recent decades, by the leader

to whom political idiom has given the title of “Boss.”

But the parallel goes no further. Lincoln was not a boss. And nothing

else in his leadership even suggests the mercenary autocrats whose

intrigues have, from time to time, brought reproach upon the whole field

of politics,--yes, upon republican institutions themselves. His

organization was, in fact, a very different affair from the corrupt

local machine of a later period. For even political machines have no

vices of their own. They are what the men who run them make them. The

modern ring with its spoilsmen, grafters, heelers, blackmailers, thugs,

and what-not,--all held together by the cohesive power of public pelf

and patronage,--could not have existed for a moment where Lincoln was

in control. Nor can we conceive of him packing primaries, manipulating

pudding ballots, falsifying election returns, or taking part in any of

those numerous other criminal acts whereby the wishes of honest voters

have, on notorious occasions, been systematically frustrated.[v-43] “He

could not cheat people out of their votes any more than out of their

money,” writes Horace White, who enjoyed the exceptional opportunities

for close observation already spoken of. “Mr. Lincoln never gave his

assent, so far as my knowledge goes, to any plan or project for getting

votes that would not have borne the full light of day.”[v-44] He never,

it is safe to add, so far as anybody’s knowledge goes, allowed his

passion for a triumph at the polls to blur an uncommonly clear vision of

what was right and what was wrong. Virtue, they say, wears the garb of

no party. Yet a Lincoln could evidently be loyal to his

organization,--loyal, if you will, to the machine itself,--without

losing sight of what he owed, in the last event, to his own ideals and

to the national well-being.

There was still another obligation, of a less lofty character, however,

that neither parties nor principles could make this alert politician

wholly forget. No matter how freely he gave himself up to the public,

his thoughts were rarely withdrawn long from what seemed due, as the

phrase goes, to number one. The appetite for distinction, so frankly

avowed in that maiden address sent out from New Salem, had grown by the

very efforts made to satisfy it. For those efforts were of no laggard

quality. When a young man, eager to rise in the world, must first free

himself from the triple clog of so many youthful aspirations,--lowly

birth, ignorance, and narrow fortunes,--he sometimes acquires a degree

of momentum that is not diminished even after the need for it has

ceased. This happened to Lincoln. The “little engine that knew no rest”

stirred him to political action through the greater portion of his life,

and when he did not hold a public place, he appears to have been

engaged, with occasional lulls, in hot pursuit of one. Here was no

reluctant patriot of the Washington-Marshall order, waiting in dignified

retirement for the office to seek the man. On the contrary, Lincoln went

out to meet his honors more--much more--than halfway. And of all the

faulty pictures presented by intrepid eulogists to a trustful world,

none perhaps is further from the fact than that which depicts him as

regretfully interrupting the practice of the law in order to enter

public life at the call of duty. The sober, unromantic truth presents

quite another view. It reveals the real Lincoln who ardently desired

political preferment, and, with characteristic candor, said so. Indeed,

few, if any, among the vote-getting campaigners of his time plunged into

the ruck of a canvass with more spirited self-assertion. “Do you

suppose,” he once wrote to a grumbling young politician, “that I should

ever have got into notice if I had waited to be hunted up and pushed

forward by older men?”[v-45]

No! Lincoln saw to his own pushing--coat off and sleeves rolled up. He

did so, moreover, in the downright, honest way we should expect from

him. And some idea of how it was done--in one direction, at least--may

be gathered from an illuminating little anecdote told recently by John

W. Bunn, another fledgling during those early Springfield days, who

sought office, to use his own phrase, “under the political wing” of that

same energetic leader.

“A day or two after my first nomination for city treasurer,” writes Mr.

Bunn, “I was going uptown and saw Mr. Lincoln ahead of me. He waited

until I caught up and said to me, ‘How are you running?’ I told him I

didn’t know how I was running. Then he said, ‘Have you asked anybody to

vote for you?’ I said I had not. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘if you don’t think

enough of your success to ask anybody to vote for you, it is probable

they will not do it, and that you will not be elected.’ I said to him,

‘Shall I ask Democrats to vote for me?’ He said, ‘Yes; ask everybody to

vote for you.’ Just then a well-known Democrat by the name of Ragsdale

was coming up the sidewalk. Lincoln said, ‘Now, you drop back there and

ask Mr. Ragsdale to vote for you.’ I turned and fell in with Mr.

Ragsdale, told him of my candidacy, and said I hoped he would support

me. To my astonishment, he promised me that he would. Mr. Lincoln walked

slowly along and fell in with me again, and said, ‘Well, what did

Ragsdale say? Will he vote for you?’ I said, ‘Yes; he told me he would.’

‘Well, then,’ said Lincoln, ‘you are sure of two votes at the election,

mine and Ragsdale’s.’ This was my first lesson in practical politics,

and I received it from a high source.”[v-46]

The source may indeed be called “high,” from more than one point of

view. For that term does not overstate the matter when it applies to a

politician who could zealously press his own interests or those of his

party amidst the hurly-burly of many a closely contested field, as

Lincoln did, and at the same time keep clear of the mud in the low

places. Confuting a common fallacy, he demonstrated, once for all, that

there is no essential connection between public life and personal

corruption. His career puts to shame those smug gentlemen who,

cloistered in spotless self-love, hold themselves aloof from active

civic service, on the plea that politics would contaminate them. Of

course, in their cases such fears may not be groundless. Perhaps these

respectable citizens may know themselves to be weak-kneed. Perhaps their

stumbling feet could not avoid the mire. In any event, they may as well

be reminded that merely to keep clean, while shirking the work, is to

practice a virtue of doubtful value. This man, on the other hand,

spending his best years in the thick of things, and giving to each task

what the task demanded, came through it all unsullied.

But to infer from these activities that Lincoln was unduly obtrusive in

advancing his political interests would be wide of the mark. When he did

blow his own trumpet, it struck a note which gave no offense. For from

an early day he had mastered the art, so difficult to acquire, of

pushing one’s self forward without overstepping the bounds of decorum.

There was an air of reserve in his demeanor at the very moment when

those rising fortunes were urged upward most eagerly. In fact, whatever

he did seemed tinged with the lambent modesty that serves, under some

conditions, to light up rather than to obscure true merit. It clearly

helped Lincoln to know himself and his deserts. One might say that the

insight which made the man conscious of extraordinary powers left him

painfully aware, as well, of their limitations. He could look himself in

the face with a certain detached candor not often found among ambitious

politicians. What is more, he could stand erect against other men and

check off his own shortcomings. Conceit in any form--need we

add?--cannot thrive under such clarity of vision. At the same time, if

this faculty for seeing things squarely as they are had failed Lincoln,

an abiding simplicity of character--to say nothing about an ever-ready

sense of humor--would doubtless have saved him from any exaggerated

opinion of his own importance. He certainly manifested no craving for

what might be called honorary distinctions. Purely formal or ornamental

functions, such as the chairmanship of a meeting, the leading part in a

civic ceremony, and the like, were exceedingly distasteful to him; while

the master of ceremonies at some social entertainment, strutting about

“drest in a little brief authority,” aroused his good-natured disdain.

With all the politician’s fondness for public life and public office, he

shrank from the mere display of himself on public occasions. At times,

moreover, some of those personal tributes, so dear to the hearts of

professional big-wigs, actually distressed him. He seemed annoyed, to

cite an instance, by a tendency to name children for him that set in

among certain admirers long before his fame had become more than local.

And even the honor of standing sponsor to a whole community apparently

brought this unassuming man no elation. For, when his friend Whitney

asked whether the town of Lincoln was named after him, he answered

dryly: “Well, yes, I believe it was named after I was.”[v-47]

Obviously, all this is not of a piece, with the oft-quoted pride that

apes humility. It should be described rather as the genuine modesty

which had its origin down deep in the man’s honest soul, in his own

appraisal of his true value, made on his own sensitive scales. He could

not mislead himself or others by false pretensions, during those

aspiring times, any more than he had found it possible, in the old

grocery-store days, to cheat customers with false weights. He frankly

rated his merits quite as low as those around him were likely to have

placed them; and it may be doubted whether even his intimates had a less

exalted opinion of Abraham Lincoln than in the last analysis had Abraham

Lincoln himself.

This freedom from egotism impressed, sooner or later, all who came in

contact with the man. His political associates, somewhat after the

manner, as the reader may remember, of his colleagues on circuit, bore

witness to the almost humble spirit in which he ordinarily conducted

himself. That such a course is likely to win popular support, disarm

criticism, and turn aside the shafts of envy, might lay almost any

politician so behaving open to the suspicion of assuming a pose--any

politician but a Lincoln. In his case, the posture accords too closely

with what we have seen of him from other angles to leave any doubt

concerning its sincerity. For instance, the same kindly fellowship that

encouraged beginners in the law, when they happened to approach him

after he had become a leader of the bar, was manifested under parallel

circumstances toward budding politicians. Among the most brilliant of

these may be ranked the young German refugee, Carl Schurz, who had

interested himself in American public affairs even before he could have

been eligible to American citizenship. Having made some speeches in

Lincoln’s behalf during a memorable canvass, the newcomer improved an

early opportunity for meeting the Sangamon chief; and much to his

surprise, found himself received, as he relates, with “offhand

cordiality, like an old acquaintance.”

This must have made a vivid impression on the tyro’s mind. Recalling the

interview toward the close of his life, Mr. Schurz tells us, with

renewed wonder, how unreservedly Lincoln discussed the campaign, and

then goes on to say: “When, in a tone of perfect ingenuousness, he asked

me--a young beginner in politics--what I thought about this and that, I

should have felt myself very much honored by his confidence had he

permitted me to regard him as a great man. But he talked in so simple

and familiar a strain, and his manner and homely phrase were so

absolutely free from any semblance of self-consciousness or pretension

to superiority, that I soon felt as if I had known him all my life and

we had long been close friends.”[v-48]

Among strangers, Lincoln carried himself, it is perhaps needless to

say, equally free from any suggestion of the grand air. His

commonplace--at times uncouth--appearance, together with his unassuming

ways, gave the chance comer no hint of the man’s importance, even after

he had obtained some measure of fame beyond the State border. On more

than one occasion he might have exclaimed, as did the famous Achæan

general when they found him meekly cutting up firewood for the hostess

of Megara: “I am paying the penalty of my ugly looks.”

So different, in truth, was Lincoln’s manner from the breezy, bumptious

swagger not seldom seen among the public personages of his day, that

only an observer of rare discernment would have taken him, at first

glance, for a prominent politician. Even nimble-witted members of the

guild themselves “smelt no royalty,” as he once quaintly expressed it,

in his presence. And one of them has handed down an amusing tale which

relates how the big man’s modest bearing hoaxed a brace of jocund

statesmen to the top of their bent. Here is the story, as Thomas H.

Nelson of Terre Haute, tells it on himself:--

“In the spring of 1849 Judge Abram Hammond, who was afterwards Governor

of Indiana, and I arranged to go from Terre Haute to Indianapolis in the

stage-coach. An entire day was usually consumed in the journey. By

daybreak the stage had arrived from the West, and as we stepped in we

discovered that the entire back seat was occupied by a long, lank

individual, whose head seemed to protrude from one end of the coach and

his feet from the other. He was the sole occupant, and was sleeping

soundly. Hammond slapped him familiarly on the shoulder, and asked him

if he had chartered the stage for the day. The stranger, now wide awake,

responded, ‘Certainly not’; and at once took the front seat, politely

surrendering to us the place of honor and comfort. We took in our

traveling companion at a glance. A queer, odd-looking fellow he was,

dressed in a well-worn and ill-fitting suit of bombazine, without vest

or cravat, and a twenty-five-cent palm hat on the back of his head. His

very prominent features in repose seemed dull and expressionless.

Regarding him as a good subject for merriment we perpetrated several

jokes. He took them all with the utmost innocence and good-nature, and

joined in the laugh, although at his own expense.

“At noon we stopped at a wayside hostelry for dinner. We invited him to

eat with us, and he approached the table as if he considered it a great

honor. He sat with about half his person on a small chair, and held his

hat under his arm during the meal. Resuming our journey after dinner,

conversation drifted into a discussion of the comet, a subject that was

then agitating the scientific world, in which the stranger took the

deepest interest. He made many startling suggestions and asked many

questions. We amazed him with ‘words of learned length and thundering

sound.’ After an astounding display of wordy pyrotechnics the dazed and

bewildered stranger asked, ‘What is going to be the upshot of this comet

business?’ I replied that I was not certain, in fact, I differed from

most scientists and philosophers, and was inclined to the opinion that

the world would follow the darned thing off!

“Late in the evening we reached Indianapolis, and hurried to Browning’s

Hotel, losing sight of the stranger altogether. We retired to our room

to brush and wash away the dust of the journey. In a few minutes I

descended to the portico, and there descried our long, gloomy

fellow-traveler in the center of an admiring group of lawyers, among

whom were Judges McLean and Huntington, Edward Hannigan, Albert S.

White, and Richard W. Thompson, who seemed to be amused and interested

in a story he was telling. I enquired of Browning, the landlord, who he

was. ‘Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, a member of Congress,’ was the

response. I was thunderstruck at the announcement. I hastened upstairs

and told Hammond the startling news, and together we emerged from the

hotel by a back door and went down an alley to another house, thus

avoiding further contact with our now distinguished fellow-traveler.”[v-49]

As these two wags sneak sheepishly away from their recent butt, they

present a comical reminder of that time-honored aphorism: “The world

receives an unknown person according to his appearance; it takes leave

of him according to his merits.” True, our crestfallen Hoosiers did not

themselves sense the worth concealed under Lincoln’s homespun manners;

yet for this the man who had so neatly gulled them could hardly be

blamed. He paid the merry jesters in their own coin, so to say; and if

they failed to notice the twinkle of his keen gray eyes as he made

change, no one was at fault but themselves. The ethics of practical

joking had been observed fairly enough. At all events, the gentlemen

from Indiana, so far as is known, set up no claim to the contrary.

Lincoln’s energies were not confined, however, to such encounters.

Within the party itself occasionally arose contests between rival

leaders that differed widely from the usual election campaigns against

the common enemy; and it is of interest to see how “Honest Abe,” under

these more delicate circumstances, conducted himself. A typical instance

was that of his canvass for Congress. This began as early as 1842 when,

upon the completion of a fourth term in the Illinois House of

Representatives, he declined the proffered renomination, but not because

he wished to retire from public life. “His ambition,” as one intimate

friend declared, “was a little engine that knew no rest.” It seemed

always speeding him toward higher levels. A seat in the National House

had now become his goal; and with characteristic directness, he

announced himself as a candidate for the promotion. An attempt,

obviously not so direct, was made to turn him aside; for we find among

his letters this word of warning, addressed at the time to a

correspondent in Cass County: “If you should hear any one say that

Lincoln don’t want to go to Congress, I wish you, as a personal friend

of mine, would tell him you have reason to believe he is mistaken. The

truth is I would like to go very much.”[v-50]

In those days the Springfield District, as it was sometimes called, had

become a Whig stronghold to such a degree that whoever received the

endorsement of the party there on the Congressional ticket might well

feel assured of his election. Naturally the prospect attracted other

ambitious young politicians besides Lincoln. He found himself strongly

opposed for the nomination by Edward Dickinson Baker, of his own county,

and General John J. Hardin, of Black Hawk War fame, from Morgan County.

The preliminary canvass was uncommonly warm. It appears to have reached

a white heat, at almost the very outset, between Lincoln and Baker in

their struggle for the control of the delegation which Sangamon should

send to the nominating convention. Both men were popular, but Baker’s

longer residence in the State, his charm of manner, his dashing

personality, and his remarkable talent for impromptu oratory gave him an

advantage, which enthusiastic friends sought still further to improve by

tactics manifestly open to criticism, especially when employed in a

party contest. For, strange to relate, a personal campaign of an abusive

nature was waged against the man from New Salem. His recent faithful

leadership on the floor of the Legislature had, for the moment, in some

quarters at least, apparently been forgotten; while his marriage during

the year to Mary Todd, whose religious affiliations--unlike those of the

Bakers--were not with the potent Campbellite Church, became by cunningly

contrived suggestion an adverse issue of seeming importance. Moreover,

his own alleged irreligion, slyly hinted at, a duel that had been talked

of but had never been fought,[v-51] an unpopular temperance address

recently delivered, and, above all, his connection through the young

wife with her prominent, perhaps too self-satisfied, relations, were

severally urged in various directions as good reasons for withholding

the desired support.

What particularly pained Lincoln was this last count in the indictment.

For one who had so recently been a “friendless, uneducated, penniless

boy working on a flat-boat at ten dollars per month,” to be “put

down”--we are quoting his own protest--“as the candidate of pride,

wealth, and aristocratic family distinction,” must have felt odd beyond

measure.[v-52] It is not surprising that, with all his political acumen,

he was at a loss for an adequate reply. What reply, indeed, can one make

to such a charge! He tried to laugh it off, meeting the story of those

high-bred relatives with the whimsical remark: “Well, that sounds

strange to me. I do not remember of but one who ever came to see me, and

while he was in town he was accused of stealing a jew’s-harp.”[v-53]

Still the canard persisted, though the fact that it ever received

serious attention must be counted among the mysteries of Illinois

politics; unless perhaps a faint suggestion of an explanation is to be

found in Lincoln’s own demeanor. He was, it is true, a commoner, a man

of the people, if there ever has been one in American public affairs.

His democratic ways, unpretentious garb, and homely fashion of speech

were as truly expressive of the man as were his sympathetic dealings, in

all the essentials of life, with the plain citizens around him. But he

neither flattered them nor catered to their prejudices. Lincoln was no

demagogue. Coming upon the scene with a generation of pioneers whose

antipathy toward the so-called aristocrats naturally had its

corresponding reaction in a fondness for men of their own kind, he made

it a point, nevertheless, to ask for support wholly on his merits; and

practiced none of those crude arts whereby politicians of that day too

often courted popular favor.[v-54] In fact, he went at times as far the

other way, and bluntly declined so to cheapen himself.

A case in point occurred on the occasion of his address before an

agricultural society, when he said: “I presume I am not expected to

employ the time assigned me in the mere flattery of the farmers as a

class. My opinion of them is that, in proportion to numbers, they are

neither better nor worse than other people. In the nature of things they

are more numerous than any other class; and I believe there really are

more attempts at flattering them than any other, the reason for which I

cannot perceive unless it be that they can cast more votes than any

other. On reflection, I am not quite sure that there is not cause of

suspicion against you in selecting me, in some sort a politician and in

no sort a farmer, to address you.”[v-55]

These words--we must add--were uttered some years later, but they nicely

illustrate the speaker’s bearing throughout his political career. The

compelling candor which led him to speak so was, in truth, the very

essence of the man. He could not do otherwise. And therein, perhaps,

lay some explanation of why it was difficult for him, during this

congressional contest, to meet the charge of having joined the so-called

privileged class,--particularly as the accusation came from members of

his own party.[v-56]

That Baker himself had anything to do with the misconduct of these

overzealous partisans, Lincoln refused to believe.[v-57] Still he could

not close his eyes to the inroads which their attacks made upon his

strength in the county. And when the Sangamon Whigs met, in the spring

of 1843, to elect delegates for the District Convention, Baker was

clearly their choice. The meeting so voted. But its confidence in the

rejected candidate was evinced, to a noteworthy extent, by his selection

as a member of the delegation, instructed to cast Sangamon’s ballot at

the convention for his successful opponent. This placed Lincoln in an

embarrassing position; and he tried, though without avail, to be

excused. Commenting on the singular occurrence to his absent friend

Speed, he wrote: “The meeting, in spite of my attempt to decline it,

appointed me one of the delegates; so that in getting Baker the

nomination, I shall be fixed a good deal like a fellow who is made a

groomsman to a man that has cut him out and is marrying his own dear

‘gal.’”[v-58]

There was this difference, however. The groomsman usually renounces his

hopes at the church door; whereas Lincoln, for a time at least after the

meeting, still considered himself, in some degree, a candidate.

Expecting his old neighbors in the New Salem-Petersburg vicinage to

instruct a Menard County delegation for him, he figured out a

combination whereby they might, under certain conditions, cast the

deciding votes in the convention. “It is truly gratifying to me,” he

wrote Martin M. Morris, one of these supporters, “to learn that while

the people of Sangamon have cast me off, my old friends of Menard, who

have known me longest and best, stick to me.”

After outlining the situation, with the terse, firm strokes of a skilled

politician, he continued: “You say you shall instruct your delegates for

me, unless I object. I certainly shall not object. That would be too

pleasant a compliment for me to tread in the dust. And besides, if

anything should happen (which, however, is not probable) by which Baker

should be thrown out of the fight, I would be at liberty to accept the

nomination if I could get it. I do, however, feel myself bound not to

hinder him in any way from getting the nomination. I should despise

myself were I to attempt it. I think, then, it would be proper for your

meeting to appoint three delegates, and to instruct them to go for some

one as a first choice, some one else as a second, and perhaps some one

as a third; and if in those instructions I were named as the first

choice, it would gratify me very much.”[v-59]

This letter furnishes another revelation of how tight a grip Lincoln’s

ambition, carrying him along at top speed, had upon his movements; and

by that same token, of how tight a grip he meant to keep, in any event,

upon the restraining brake, which was so rarely allowed to leave his

watchful hand. Whether he could have maintained his moral equilibrium,

however, in the District Convention, as a delegate instructed for one

candidate while he permitted his friends to support another candidate,

and that candidate himself, raises, under all the circumstances, a

delicate question in political ethics. Happily, Lincoln was not called

upon to try it out. By the time the delegates gathered at Pekin, he and

Baker were both outdistanced by General Hardin, who promptly became the

choice of a far from harmonious convention.

Then ensued an incident which, besides having a controlling influence

toward the shaping of local politics for some years to come, caused

controversies later of more than local importance. This is how it came

about. No sooner had the vote been taken than Lincoln walked across the

room to James M. Ruggles, one of the Hardin delegates, and asked him

whether he would favor a resolution recommending Baker for the

succeeding congressional term. Ruggles, who was fond of that gentleman,

readily consented, so Lincoln said: “You prepare the resolution, I will

support it, and I think we can pass it.”[v-60]

The motion is said to have “created a profound sensation, especially

with the friends of Hardin.” Some of them warmly objected, but it was

passed, nevertheless, by a very close vote. The proposition should,

indeed, have been well received. It belonged to that class of convention

devices which is sometimes designated as “good politics.” The contest

had stirred up much feeling, and Lincoln, like the alert party leader

that he was, took this means of placating a disgruntled faction. “So far

as I can judge from present appearances,” he declared, “we shall have no

split or trouble about the matter. All will be harmony.”[v-61] And when

the nominee wrote a letter, after the convention, expressing some doubt

as to whether the Whigs of Sangamon would support him, Lincoln replied:

“You may, at once, dismiss all fears on that subject. We have already

resolved to make a particular effort to give you the very largest

majority possible in our county. From this, no Whig of the county

dissents. We have many objects for doing it. We make it a matter of

honor and pride to do it; we do it, because we love the Whig cause; we

do it, because we like you personally; and last, we wish to convince

you, that we do not bear that hatred to Morgan County, that you people

have so long seemed to imagine. You will see by the _Journal_ of this

week, that we propose, upon pain of losing a Barbecue, to give you twice

as great a majority in this county as you shall receive in your own. I

got up the proposal.”[v-62]

This magnanimous treatment of Hardin, like the resolution in Baker’s

favor, is noteworthy. Yet here again--of a truth, in neither case--did

Lincoln wholly neglect his own aspirations. Though he regarded both

these men with sincere good-will, and stepped aside for them with

unruffled temper, it was in the hope that his turn would come next. Some

of the party leaders, in fact, eventually worked out an arrangement

whereby John J. Hardin, Edward Dickinson Baker, Abraham Lincoln, and

Stephen Trigg Logan succeeded one another in the Whig nomination of the

district, for a single congressional term each. That this bargain or

deal--to use familiar political expressions--existed has been vehemently

denied. And in the nature of such affairs, it may well be doubted

whether there was a definite agreement to which the parties in interest

gave their formal approval. The Hardin following, for one, appears to

have acquiesced unwillingly, if indeed it actually assented at all.

Still, no less an authority than Lincoln himself tells us of “an

understanding among Whig friends,” whereby each of these men received

the nomination in turn.[v-63] And this understanding, in part at least,

had its public ratification, if not its origin, as we have seen, with

his resolution endorsing Baker. Although politicians usually conceal

such transactions, because they are looked upon by the voters with

disfavor, and although some through-thick-and-thin eulogists, trembling

for the fair fame of their hero, have refused to believe that Lincoln

did anything at this point which savored of intrigue, he himself

manifestly made no secret of the matter nor of his hand in it. A

thoroughgoing candidate from start to finish, this man, honorable as he

was, played his game according to the standards of the aggressive

political school in which he had been bred. But he played it openly. He

saw no harm in that group of aspirants “making a slate,” as the process

is sometimes called; and under all the circumstances, neither do we.

The Sangamon chief, true to his pledge, loyally supported the nominee of

the convention. General Hardin, triumphant at the polls, went to

Congress. And when, by reason of a change in the time for holding the

next election, it became necessary, during the following year, to name

his successor, he gave way in Baker’s favor, as the Pekin resolution had

provided. Naturally Lincoln, the father of that measure, did likewise.

In fact, he worked no less faithfully for rival number two than he had

for rival number one, and Baker was duly chosen.[v-64] Then at last, in

1846, came Lincoln’s turn. Expecting to reap the reward of his patience,

he struck out vigorously for the nomination. But to his chagrin, Hardin,

ready to make the race for another term, threatened again to block the

way; while Judge Logan, the remaining claimant on the slate, had also

entered the field, demanding precedence over Lincoln on the ground of

seniority as well as of valuable services to the party. Whether this

latter candidature was entirely sincere, or whether it should be deemed

one of those back-firing devices to head off other aspirants, so often

employed by political strategists, cannot, at this late day, be

determined. True, the dissolution of partnership at law between Logan

and Lincoln, several years before, had been due, in a degree at least,

to the conflicting congressional ambitions of its members. Still,

nothing that then took place was rasping enough, so far as is known, to

keep them from entering into an “understanding” for their mutual

benefit. At all events, Logan can hardly be said to have made a very

vigorous start and, after a brief reconnoissance of the district, he

withdrew gracefully in Lincoln’s favor.